


only in the bones

by mooneuphonium



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Gen, Metaphors, Non-Linear Narrative, a vivisection of the holmes siblings, concept: we all just want to be able to love, main focus on eurus, sherlock is there so of course john is there (always), they're very There
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 01:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooneuphonium/pseuds/mooneuphonium
Summary: Eurus is locked away and she just wants Sherlock tosee.





	only in the bones

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively, whatever happened in _the final problem_ and trying to make sense of eurus. 
> 
> title is from franz kafka's _letters to milena_. (_I am always trying to convey something that can’t be conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable, to tell about something I have in my bones, something which can be expressed only in the bones._)
> 
> **warnings:** mentions of violence (VERY scarce & VERY brief)
> 
> for suzy (of course, always)

White walls are supposed to keep Eurus calm.

Eurus is very calm. Eurus is something you notice only when it’s too late. Only when she’s cutting your throat and painting the whole world red.

Red, red, red. She’d prefer it to the white walls. She talks to people and the walls are white and she is so very calm (readying) and she tells them to kill their family. Family means home means walls. She thinks how pretty the walls will look, painted red. Dripping, a masterpiece in motion.

Red means heart. Red means Eurus has a heart. It beats so — white, calm, readying — in her chest. It’s smeared with chalk. Ruins, crashing down on her. Ashes? A house burning to the ground?

A heart — Eurus doesn’t want to be alone.

Eurus says, “Kill your family.”

Eurus thinks, _ be as alone as i am_.

And then they tell her the man killed himself along the way. _ Weak, weak, weak_, she can’t help but think. _ Did you even look at the walls? _ she wants to ask him. _ Did you see what you’ve done? Did you see how alone you are? _

(_ How alone I am? _)

_ do you know what it’s like? _

Naturally, no one knows.

Eurus is one of a kind.

Eurus is the East Wind coming. Eurus is the plague that will descend upon the world and wipe out humankind. Eurus is—

/

Eurus is everyone’s idea of locked up. 

The island, the fortress, the guards. People will believe whatever’s on the surface.

/

Eurus is an idea.

Nobody knows she’s also a heart.

/

Eurus is not protected— not initially, at least. She is what the world has to be protected from.

Still, all bodies can be flipped inside out. Mycroft locked her up but he will still bare his throat when she asks him to. 

/

(white, white, white.)

nevertheless, a heart.

/

Rather than a queen, Eurus likes to think of herself as the conductor of the castle. Her perfect little orchestra. The guards come down because they can’t help themselves. Something about her, she’s always been like that, something about her makes people unable to look away. The Holmes charm. The deadly Holmes charm that could get her and both her siblings killed, that lethal precision, the unmistakable deduction. It could kill them but it could also elevate them to the top of the world. 

And that’s a game worth playing.

/

No one knows and Mycroft thinks he locked her up but buildings are like bodies and buildings have many beating hearts and raw flesh and Eurus bites into every single one. Moriarty comes, her Christmas present. She sees him and her heart (her heart her heart her heart) blooms like a pine tree, like myriads of lights.

She wants to say, _ you love Sherlock._ He looks at her like he knows.

She says instead, “Redbeard.” And he looks at her and of course he knows.

They stand so close to the glass. Three feet, whoever cared about that. Eurus sees Moriarty and she sees the death wish scribbled on his bones, etched into his very marrow. He loves Sherlock the same way she does. She knows Moriarty because she knows Sherlock. They’re one and the same. One cannot exist without the other.

(But perhaps the other can exist without the one.)

She sees Moriarty and she thinks, _ you and I are so alike._ Their reflections blur and merge in the glass.

(Once upon a time there was glass.

The shattering comes later.

Eurus really cannot stand the white.)

If there was no glass, she could kiss Moriarty. He would go along because she is Sherlock, too.

They’re all Sherlock.

/

Eurus plays the violin. She taught Sherlock, a long time ago. 

When she plays and there is glass, she imagines Sherlock playing with her, their harmonies the same. She imagines he does not waver.

She never wavers.

/

Eurus tells the man to kill his family.

Eurus tells another man to shoot her and he breaks the glass.

Eurus tells another man to prepare the props to create the illusion of glass, another man to make the microphone for her throat. She swallows it like the pills they used to give her before they realized they had no effect on her.

She plays the violin and the walls are white and the sound is imperfect when Mycroft stands three feet away from the (glass) and she is the conductor of the castle.

She plays and everyone listens and the walls are so, so white.

/

She’s seen the surveillance footage. She’s seen the hat, the fall, the skull on the mantelpiece. She’s seen John Watson (of course John Watson, always always always, of course), seen what no one else had seen (of course, always).

/

Eurus recognizes Sherlock from the way the air parts around him. 

/

Sherlock doesn’t remember her. He sees her but at the same time doesn’t. _Oh._

She should be disappointed but isn’t. The walls are very white. 

He plays so beautifully. He doesn’t remember her but he plays like he does. His hand shakes. She asks, “Is that vibrato, or is your hand shaking?”

He stops playing. She doesn’t want him to stop playing. She smiles.

_ my favourite, my favourite, my favourite._

She tells him to step closer. The walls are white and she’s still as ice and he doesn’t step closer. She does everything the way she always does and he doesn’t step closer. She’s already past the three feet and he doesn’t step closer.

She mentions the word _ glass _ but he doesn’t see.

There’s this thing people do where they tilt their head when something sparks their curiosity. Sherlocks does that. The people who evaluate her do that.

Eurus is still as ice.

“Tell me what you remember,” he says. He ignores her and her heart shakes like dust in sunlight.

_ my favourite, my favourite, my favourite._ “You, me and Mycroft. Mycroft was quite clever. He could understand things if you went a bit slow, but you…”

Sherlock doesn’t know how to be still. Oh, how she likes that, when he sways on his feet. He nods, she sees him nod, she sees the decision taking shape in this nod.

She says, “You were my favourite.”

He steps closer.

So it’s a game. Eurus can play like no other.

“Why was I your favourite?” He’s so calm, so very calm but he’s not white. He’s the red you just can’t see yet.

“Because I could make you laugh. I loved it when you laughed. Once, I made you laugh all night, I thought you were going to burst.”

Sherlock is a painting in motion. His eye twitches, the corner of his mouth moves up and down ever so slightly. So red, Sherlock. So red and no one can see.

“I was so happy.”

Sherlock steps closer.

“Then Mummy and Daddy had to stop me, of course.”

Sherlock’s foot is slower to follow behind. “Why?”

“Well… Turns out I got it wrong.”

Even now, the memory confuses her. What’s the difference, really, what was her mistake? When people laugh they shake and their face twists all funny and the noise they make, oh, the noise, so loud and imperfect, so grating and raw.

So _right_.

“Apparently, you were screaming.”

Sherlock mirrors her. There’s nothing between them except for the thing he cannot see and he mirrors her. He’s ice but he’s not frozen water, no. He’s frozen blood.

“Why was I screaming?” So meticulous, so calculating, it’s a game, answer for a step for an answer for a step. Closer, closer, closer. Where?

And then she sees it. Sherlock’s eyes trailing downwards, disconnecting. The mind palace or just remembering? No, there it is, the trembling. His mouth trembles and he looks down and Eurus’ heart shakes the same the same the same. They’re blood, after all.

It’s a memory because he shakes. The mind palace, he would be ice. 

He whispers, “Redbeard.”

Eurus thinks, _ my favourite, my favourite, my favourite._

/

The Holmes charm. The deadly Holmes charm that could get her and both her siblings killed, that lethal precision, the unmistakable deduction. It could kill them but it could also elevate them to the top of the world. 

Mycroft went on to become the British government.

Sherlock went on to become a consulting detective.

Eurus, well. Eurus hasn’t changed much.

/

When Mycroft visits her he sees glass and she doesn’t bother telling him about the things he cannot see. Mycroft is something rotten. Rotting. He looks at her and all she can see is their house burning down.

/

When they were kids, they would play by the river bend near the house. They would wear rainboots and Eurus would crash planes and Sherlock would be a pirate and Mycroft would be Mycroft.

And Mycroft always looked at her like he knew what she was.

But Sherlock—

/

“I remember Redbeard.”

red, red, red.

Eurus loves him. “Do you, now?”

Closer, closer, closer.

Sherlock takes another step. He’s nearly at the collapsing point, nearly at the moment he sees. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

/

Eurus knows of Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, Mary, little Rosie. 

She knows John Watson.

He’s sad and bitter and angry. Eurus sees Sherlock reflected in his eyes. She sees the ghosts behind his back. Or, hers? She knows ghosts better than anyone.

She knows John Watson.

She knows Sherlock through John Watson.

/

A heart is a heart and a heart always has trouble staying stitched to the underside of the skin.

/

“Touch the glass.” 

Sherlock blinks. The battle of humanity. The straining of it.

They’re almost there. Eurus knows ghosts.

They make her feel tired.

/

Mycroft always looked at her like he knew what she was. 

But Sherlock always looked at her in the only way he knew how.

/

Sherlock has it all wrong. He thinks Redbeard was a dog. Eurus feels the ebbing of annoyance but the walls are white so she keeps it down. 

(Something else, too. Something she wouldn’t know how to name if she were to call out to it across the river.)

“Oh, Sherlock. You know nothing. Touch the glass and I’ll tell you the truth.”

The moment is perfectly still. He’s looking at her like it’s her move like they’re sitting across each other on their thrones. Equals. He’s so patient.

Eurus lifts up her hand. “I’ll touch it too if you’re scared.”

Scared, scared, scared. The only emotion she ever learned to recognize. The only emotion she knows.

Mycroft was a good older brother. He taught her well.

Sherlock frowns. They have the same eyes.

“You think it’s a trick,” she guesses (and guesses right; Sherlock, the magician, in constant fear of others who have learned their spells). “You look so… unsure. You’re not used to being unsure, are you?”

/

Eurus knows Sherlock. 

She puts on glasses and a wig and walks with a cane.

(The cane distresses him. He glances at it and his face wavers and she knows he remembers.

John Watson used to walk with a cane.

Interesting.)

She’s disappointed (sad? John Watson would be sad) he doesn’t recognize her but that hardly seems surprising when he can’t catch up with reality. He doesn’t recognize her but then again, he’s not Eurus.

They’re both Sherlock but he’s not Eurus.

They walk into the night. He throws the gun into the Thames. She sees John Watson like a ghost at his side. He shakes and she knows him and he’s their house burning down.

She knows John Watson through Sherlock.

/

Her (little) older brother. Always looking at people the only way he knows how.

/

His voice is clipped. “It’s more common than you’d think.”

He didn’t recognize her on Baker Street and in the illuminated London gloom. He solved the case but he doesn’t recognize her.

He thinks Redbeard is a dog. They’re almost touching. He doesn’t _see_.

“Look at you. A man who sees through everything is exactly the man who doesn’t notice…”

Sherlock lifts up his hand. Eurus’ gut twists all delicious, they’re almost at the breaking point. Humans, hearts, red. She’s a shark in the water.

And then—

Their palms press against each other and Eurus gasps as Sherlock’s eyes widen and she grips his hand feels the veins pulse with blood blood blood quicker, quickening, and Sherlock is alive and, “... when there’s nothing to see through.”

There’s no glass and Sherlock is so alive and Eurus hasn’t touched a Holmes in decades.

Sherlock shudders. He’s human, after all.

(Not, _ only _ human.

Human.

So very human.

Achingly, painfully human.)

And Eurus is not alone.

/

Mycroft looked at her with fear and Eurus learned what fear was. 

Sherlock looked at her and Eurus didn’t understand any of the human emotions he felt.

He has so many.

/

Eurus chokes Sherlock because she’s not alone and the walls are so white. 

A pity, really.

She has always loved red.

/

They were constantly imagining something when they were kids. Sherlock would cry easily until Mycroft told him to stop. Eurus told Sherlock to steal a hairband from Mummy and he did. Sherlock would be a pirate and Eurus would water-land a plane and Mycroft would watch them from the shore. 

Sherlock had a friend and he was a pirate, too. They never told her she couldn’t play but it felt like they did.

The Holmes were three dots, loosely connected across the river.

She just wanted them to be closer.

/

Eurus makes him play a game because Sherlock loves games. She knows him and she knows John Watson and she knows John Watson through Sherlock and she knows Sherlock through John Watson. 

Always the two of them, of course.

Eurus likes John Watson. He makes Sherlock play when he doesn’t want to go on. He grips the handle of the gun but he’s only human. (Only, that one. He’s no Holmes.) He looks at Sherlock and Sherlock looks at him. They won’t make a decision without each other. Their eyes are so alive, the most alive things about them. They speak of things Eurus saw in the water. They speak of blood even if they aren't blood.

Eurus likes John Watson. He picks Sherlock up after he trashes the coffin.

(All that love, buried. Can’t he see? Can’t he see John, that it’s all just a game?)

(Play with me, Sherlock.)

Eurus likes John Watson. He will go until he can go no further. The game wouldn’t matter if it was only Sherlock and Mycroft. She nearly forgets about him, Mycroft. He retches in the first cell, won’t take the gun. Has to keep his hands squeaky clean. He’s the one who chose the wall paint. Eurus would’ve killed him herself if it weren’t for the thrill, for the girl on the plane.

She’s doing it all for that little girl.

Eurus likes John Watson because he saves Sherlock (of course, always) and Sherlock is the only person who can save the girl.

/

Eurus never knew dread until Sherlock puts a gun under his chin and starts counting down. “Ten…”

“No,” Eurus says, no, panics _ no _ Eurus doesn’t know _ no _ Eurus—

“Nine…”

John Watson looks at Sherlock like fear is something he wishes he could unlearn. Mycroft looks at Sherlock like a thread snapping. 

Eurus is afraid. She can’t lose Sherlock.

John Watson is there and Mycroft is there and she already said her goodbyes to Mycroft and Sherlock is going to blow his head off and it’s not how it was supposed to go and Eurus is—

/

Sherlock is (and was and forever will be) her favourite because he loves until he aches. 

And then he loves some more.

And when he looked at Eurus, she knew it was the only thing he ever knew to look with.

Love.

/

John is drowning in a well and he picks up a skull and it’s Redbeard and Sherlock remembers. 

The plane is about to crash and Sherlock remembers.

Good.

Eurus is the girl on the plane.

/

Moriarty was already dead when Eurus met him. 

Mycroft was rotting.

But Sherlock—

Sherlock was human. Alive, red and blood.

And Eurus wanted nothing more than to paint the walls red and touch Sherlock’s hand and, through that touch, feel what it means when a thing that loves touches you.

Just to feel.

/

Eurus is not Sherlock. 

Sherlock is not Eurus.

One breaks because he knows what it means.

The other wants to break because it’s the only thing she can do to paint the world red.

/

Eurus is the girl on the plane and Sherlock is the only one who can save her and she’s not alone.

/

All Eurus has ever wanted— 

telling people to kill to shoot to break to _ touch _—

it was all so she was not alone.

/

They put her away. The story goes like it was always supposed to go. 

Eurus is almost glad.

/

Sherlock comes to visit and he sees the glass and the glass is there. He sees everything. He brings the violin. He plays until she joins in. 

He can’t hear her. Nobody will ever hear her again. But that doesn’t matter.

Sherlock is not a nobody.

Eurus picks up the tune where he leaves off. She only has to hear a few passages to know how it goes. She sees John Watson putting headphones on the horned skull that fell off the wall. She sees them cleaning the apartment off debris. She sees ashes swirling in the air.

The Holmes house burnt to the ground but it doesn’t mean all that knew fire can’t learn to see into the water.

Eurus plays and Sherlock smiles. She plays: people, so many people. Mrs Hudson putting her hands on her hips, Lestrade picking up scorched books from the floor, Molly drinking a cup of tea without the bags under her eyes.

Sherlock smiles and joins her and she can’t hear him but she knows they’re playing in tune. He doesn’t waver. The vibrato is a vibrato. She sees little Rosie in Sherlock’s arms, she sees her in John’s.

(of course, John.

the coffin was just a game.)

Eurus plays like it’s her life and Sherlock plays like it’s a life he wishes he could’ve given her.

In another life, perhaps.

/

Eurus plays and the walls are red and Sherlock is the only one who can hear her.

And Eurus is not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> much love


End file.
